Verizon's 'Can you hear me now?' actor gets his life back

0.phoneArenaposted on14 Apr 2011, 12:34

For the last 9 years, you've known him as Verizon's 'Can you hear me now?" guy, but with Verizon's advertising taking a different direction, Paul Marcarelli is now free to talk about his life as the Test Man...

16.JeffdaBeat (unregistered)

I don't think that's the point...you'll learn that personal happiness really isn't created by money at all. I mean, how would you feel if you were in his spot and you were at your mother's funeral when you overheard someone say your famous catchphrase? All you'd want to do is mourn and you're not able to. And calling him a gay slur? It's not always about money...

so a couple bad things happen to this guy and we should feel sorry for him? People deal with crappy jobs and feel miserable for 50 hours a week to make a portion of what this guy made working 5 minutes on a commercial.
And that whole money doesn't but happiness was an invention by poor people to feel better about themselves

38.JeffdaBeat (unregistered)

I don't remember reading anywhere that he is asking for sympathy. In fact, I think most of your reactions is the reason why the story came out. We all have this idea that being a spokesperson is a cake walk and he simply talked about some of the bad parts of it. What's even funnier is that it is the journalist that kept asking him for an interview. It's not like him going to the publication saying, "I WANT TO TELL MY STORY!!!"

And...I don't know...ask any lottery winner if money bought them happiness...most cases it ruins their lives...

4.ATTCallCenter (unregistered)

Talk about the easiest job ever...show up for work..."Can you hear me now? Good!"...paycheck. Wish that was me instead of working at this bulls**t call center with ATT who demands more of us than what we were hired for. These idiots want us to sell their landline products when we are in the Upgrades department for cell phones. I work for a communist company that wants to take over cell phone communications. Death to the machine!!!

"Demands more of us than what we were hired for" are you serious? It's a job, you do what they tell you to do and you work hard because that's what you're being payed for. Seriously why do people think now that they can get a job and only do minimal or above minimal amount of work and have the right to complain? Lots of other people do harder jobs then you for less pay and they work longer hours so please go back to what I assume is a cubicle and sit down in your chair and think about how good you have it. If you don't like your job then go find another one.

17.JeffdaBeat (unregistered)

But if you want to put it in the same perspective, there are people in third world countries who work a whole hell of a lot harder than you do doing physical labor and get paid maybe a tenth of what you do sitting on your ass all day.

I don't think the Verizon guy is complaining about his job at all, he is telling the result of being known as the Verizon test guy...that's all. It even says, "The Test Man looks back on his time with Verizon fondly, but there were many sacrifices he had to make." Every job has it's ups and downs. He is no different...but at least he enjoyed his experiences overall.

I don't think people can really appriate just how hard customer service really is until you have done it. I have done both back-breaking work and tech support for both T-Mobile and VZW and I can honestly say that call center work really sucks! Having to troubleshoot, diagnose, fix/replace, report, upsell, educate and save customers all within 6 mins is not as easy as some may want to believe. Especially when a lot of the customers are angry and just looking for someone to take it out on. At my last call center, we were required to take a minimum of 35 calls per day which is not easy when someone has a Blackberry that needs a master reset and they haven't backed up their device. These carriers are squeezing their front line (The reps and techs) so hard that it makes the job almost impossible unless you are willing to cut corners. There is no way to give the carrier and the customer what they want and that is where the stress comes in at. And if you don't think working at a call center is stressful, try working at one.

As for the test man. He was not just the face of VZW, but he was also an employee, an engineer. So no, he didn't have such an easy job either.

26.Super Android Evo (unregistered)

Everything you said about a call center job is true. In 2001 I worked at one of the Verizon Wireless call centers. It is a stressful job. But to imply that you know what this guy did is kinda out there. You don't know what his cotract was about, not if he is an engineer or anything else. Now if he is your firend & you know him personally then that is another story.

That's my point. We don't know anything about him, thats why I think this is an interesting article. All we really know about him is his catch phrase and the Buddy Holly glasses. The nightly news force feeds us all kinds of useless deal about Snooki and Lindsy Lohan, who are both about as deep as a kiddy pool. But this guy may actually have something of substance to say. Id like to hear more.

29.JeffdaBeat (unregistered)

I don't think anyone is disputing that customer service is hard work. But you can't say that this guy has it hard and that customer service is real work when there are people who work in sweat shops or work fields who would turn around and say a customer service jobs is cake compared to what they do for pennies. Everyone's job has its perks and it's faults...but you can't just look at this guy and say, oh you make bank so you have no right to complain about your life...which isn't what he was doing in the first place

I'm not saying that people who work in sweat shops and fields don't have hard jobs, of course they do. But tell the customer service agent who had a stroke at my call center, that their job is cake. Just because a person sits at a desk doesn't mean their job is any less difficult or important than anyone else's. But I can appreciate the more physical jobs while some people have no respect for people in customer service. I just think it's a shame that not many people appreciate what we do.

31.JeffdaBeat (unregistered)

Alrighty dude...read my first sentence...no one is disputing that customer service is hardwork... everything else I wrote refers back to what ATTCallCenter said in their original post. Don't compare because someone always has it worse off than you...

I never compared anything. My point is the guy is letting off a little steam about his job and I could relate. That's all. You can always find someone who has it worse off than you, youre preaching to the choir on this one. In fact, I agree more with you than ATTCallCenter. All I'm saying is the story is interesting and I'd like to hear more. But there's no reason to judge who has the toughest job whether its customer service, spokes person, drill Sargent, Wendy's fry cooker, or party clown.

39.Vieve (unregistered)

Here is the definition of communism from dictionary dot com:

1. a theory or system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state.
2. ( often initial capital letter ) a system of social organization in which all economic and social activity is controlled by a totalitarian state dominated by a single and self-perpetuating political party.

AT&T is capitalist, not communist. Unless I'm mistaken, AT&T doesn't want to be controlled by the government or the community as a whole. I'm just saying.

7.Super Android Evo (unregistered)

And why do we care about him? Does phonearena.com need something to write about? I thought something serious happened to him, by what the title of this post says. When I log on to this site, I am not interested in anything that has nothing to do with the mobile industry. That is why I go on this site to begin with. If I want news on what indie films are being made by who ever, I will go to another site. Wow I think this is bogus! Thanks but no thanks. I really don't care about what contract he signed, how he got his life back together, or that he wants to do something meaningful. He made his choice and signed the contract so what is news worthy about that? This post is a waste of time. "Can you hear me now!" GOOD!

23.Super Android Evo (unregistered)

Are you guys kidding me? This has something to do with the wireless industry? It sounds like a plug to me. It’s like an ad for his indie movie. It took me less time to write that comment then to read the post. I just felt like I was given something totally different than the title implies. Why should I feel bad or care about what he did with his life. He is a big boy and made his choice. No one forced him to sign the contract.

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